With a couple of Osmonds, a few Brady kids, an old Chinese detective, a dog and his mystery-solving friends, and Bill Cosby, the second Saturday Morning Revolution began in earnest in 1972. And, it was a long road to hoe to get to this point. That was thanks to the radical changes that needed to be made to the schedule during the late 60s and first few years of the 70s. Changes that were the result of mounting complaints by citizen action committees as well as nervous network executives.

To review: from 1966 until about 1969 things ran fairly smoothly for the networks when it came to Saturday morning programming. With the popularity of superheroes during that time the schedules were full of programs featuring supermen, batmen, space ghosts and super presidents. As hero worship waned during the last years of the 1960s the networks turned their attentions to an older viewing audience, focusing on shows with a number of teenagers and young adults -- many of them in animated rock-and-roll bands.

But, by 1970, all of that changed. As pressures to air more educational and less violent and vapid fare came from all sides, the networks were unsure what to do. They wanted to continue airing cartoons, but they were so watered down (or imitations of what was already airing) that they weren't as entertaining. They presented a number of live-action educational programs to the schedule as well, but very few of them lasted more than a year. By 1971 it looked like the networks had all but given up on Saturday mornings.

Well, one of my Festivus wishes may be coming true after all. As we reported last week there are rumors that Donny & Marie (it is never Donny and Marie, always Donny & Marie) may be returning to television in perhaps a daytime talk show format or a reality program. My hope is that they shelve all of that and give us another variety show. And, if they can get it up in time, then we can have an Osmond Family Christmas.

Just like the one in this video, which seems to be from the latter (or last) season of the ABC variety show Donny & Marie. I probably remember these episodes the most because they featured every single Osmond that was still alive. In this example we see the Osmond Family band, including Jimmy on trumpet, Merrill on banjo, and Dad (may he rest in peace) on the bass guitar. We even get to see Marie play a little xylophone during the set.